Today is the day that I got sick. I am slightly convinced that my roommate, John Wengierski, passed his illness to me. Nothing horrific, just an extremely sore throat and headache. However, it did cause me to sit out the day. I caught up on some much needed sleep and then hung out with Dr. Gruninger the entire day. The main purpose of the day was to present our group projects to the Dive BVI staff, along with Doc. We compiled all of our research, made a graph, a slideshow of pictures, and wrote a script. Then we would walk in for the presentation. To break the ice, we started with a joke — “What happened to the depressed plankton?”…”It krilled itself.” It was funny to see how the little, insignificant joke produced so much laughter. Then we introduced our project, talking about plankton and how they are related to the microorganisms that were the first living things on the planet. Also, in WWII the U.S. would introduced large amounts of bioluminescent plankton into the water, once agitated, they would glow giving away the enemy’s position. It was mostly used for submarine warfare. Then came the discussion of our procedure, describing the tools used to conduct our research and record data. Also discussed was our failed attempts at catching the tiny glowing organisms, which made everyone giggle because, when you are swimming at night, hundreds glow all around you, so you expect to collect a bunch when you drag a cooler through the water, no. Next we presented our data and graphs. All leading up to the conclusion that our project was a complete success. One of the staff, Becca, called our project “vague science”, but even with the experimental error our hypothesis was proven true. Next came the staff’s turn for questioning, but they didn’t have any for us. They felt that we presented excellently and had no further questions about the project. Instead they asked us individual questions about what we learned on the trip, which was incredibly hard to think of on the spot. After all was said and done, with a few more laughs, we went outside and walked down to the beach for pizza and a relaxing evening. Even for being sick, feeling awful, the day was a ton of fun, it’s impossible to have no fun on such an amazing island and fantastic school trip.
